Crossed Flags
by Maidenstear
Summary: His first thought was that it was very warm. The second was that someone was calling his name—or rather his version of his name. Implied Natalia.Asch, Luke.Tear


Aneko: I just bought Tales of the Abyss on the 3DS. Yes, I already have it on the PS2. What's your point?

Disclaimer: I only wish I had had the skill to come up with a story as intricate and beautiful as Tales of the Abyss.

* * *

**Crossed Flags**

"To think that the future I foresaw would be rewritten…You have done admirably."

Luke almost smiled. It was just like Tear had said:

"_because Yulia loved the world…"_

He closed his eyes and let Lorelei carry him and Asch away.

* * *

His first thought was that it was very warm. The second was that someone was calling his name—or rather _his_ version of his name.

"Hey, Replica. Wake up."

He rolled over and didn't respond. Just a few more minutes. He was still tired.

"I said wake up!"

A sharp discomfort in his abdomen brought him to his feet. He opened his eyes to a scowling face with green eyes identical to his own.

"Asch! You didn't have to kick me!"

The older redhead lowered the offending leg that had delivered the kick and turned away. "Figures. I'm the one who died, and yet you're the one who fell asleep."

Luke felt like he probably should have been more surprised to see his original up and walking around, but he wasn't. He felt calmed, or drowsy, like his body was travelling in slow motion through a dream. He looked around. Their surroundings were not unlike his vision of the core when they had closed the Radiation Gate.

"Where are we?" Luke asked.

"With Lorelei."

"But we're still…_us. _I can see you as you." He didn't know what he had been expecting, but he had not expected to see Asch as a whole person, or feel his own being—his breathing, his heartbeat—in such detail. Maybe he had thought that they'd just fade away into Lorelei.

Asch shrugged. "Ask Lorelei, not me. I died, remember?"

Luke looked down at his hands. They felt more _whole _than they had in a long time. Like they had never started separating in the first place.

"And you!" Asch rounded on him again. "Just how stupid are you?"

"Excuse me?"

"You were supposed to _free _Lorelei, not go with it. Leave it up to you and everything gets screwed up, just like with the Jewel."

"Well it's not like I _wanted _to go with Lorelei, but it seemed better than dying slowly."

"What are you talking about, dreck?"

"I…my body started to go through fonon separation at the Tower of Rem, when we purified the miasma. I was going to die even if I didn't go with Lorelei."

Asch stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. "You've got to be kidding me!" He looked even more irritated than usual. "So Score or no Score, Luke fon Fabre was supposed to die, huh?" He shouted at the cosmos around them. "Don't pull that on me! What kind of sick, empty accomplishment is that? One of us was supposed to live! Answer me!"

"Asch—"

"Shut up!" Asch pointed a finger at him. "As a member of House Fabre, how dare you give up so easily. Where is all that talk about wanting to live, huh?"

"It's not like I wanted to _die_!" Luke shouted, sick of being yelled at. "I WANTED TO LIVE!" His voice echoed, bouncing and screaming the words back to him.

Asch took a threatening step forward, his eyebrows drawing into a deeper line. "Are you _crying?_"

"So what if I am?" Luke sniffed, scrubbing at his face. "So what if I wanted to live this much? I…I wasn't ready to die."

Guy, Natalia, Jade, Anise…_Tear_.

Asch opened his mouth to respond, but he was interrupted by another voice.

"Luke, Asch…my perfect isofons." They looked around, but there was no real physical manifestation to denote Lorelei's presence. Luke felt that it was more of a vibration, a feeling against his senses that he could describe in no other way than weight—Lorelei's presence like a hand pressed against his chest and eardrums. Not unpleasant, but impossible to ignore. The voice continued. "I do not have much power left over the planet. After I was released, many of the seventh fonons that I contain diminished. But I would still like to give you something in return for what you have done."

"Give us something?"

"It means make a pact." Asch cut in. "Like the one between Lorelei and Yulia."

"Yes, a pact. As a sign of the pact, I have enough power to return one of you."

"Return—you mean go home?" Luke almost yelped the words.

"Yes."

Luke's racing mind slowed, and he glanced at his stoic counterpart out of the corner of his eye. The one whose place had been stolen.

It was only fair.

Luke steeled himself to say, "Then Asch should be the one who—"

"Send him." Asch jerked his thumb in Luke's direction.

"Asch!"

"I could tell by the stupid expression on your face that you were thinking something stupid."

"But you said I stole everything from you. Don't you want—"

"Shut up!" Asch barked. "If I had my sword, I would kill you right now! If you're so desperate to live, then take any chance you can to get that back, without thinking about anyone else's problems."

"But Asch—"

"Don't get me wrong, I'm not doing it for _you_." Asch looked away. "But they…they've already accepted my death." Luke didn't have to ask who _they_ were.

"Luke, what is your answer?" Lorelei asked.

Luke didn't take his eyes off of Asch's hunched shoulders and bowed head.

"Okay."

"There is no time to waste, then." A fonic glyph appearing beneath his feet separated him from Asch. "I will return the key to you, to seal the new pact." From the ground, the Key of Lorelei began to rise. Luke grasped the hilt, and the fonic glyph began to glow.

"Replica!" Luke looked up. "If you bring any shame to House Fabre, I _will_ come and kill you." Luke didn't doubt his sincerity, or that he would find a way to do it, dead or not.

Soon he would lose sight of Asch and be sent back.

"Re—Luke." Luke was startled to hear Asch call him by name.

"Tell her…tell her I'm…sorry."

Luke nodded and kept his eyes on the sword, pretending not to hear the slight tremor on the last word. Just before the light became too bright to see anything, he called back.

"Asch!" He waited to make sure Asch was looking at him. The last time those green eyes would meet his. The words came without difficulty, without doubt. "She will always—"

"_Someday, when we're grown up…"_

_"_Always—"

"_Let's change this country."_

"Love you."

"_Together."_

The light burned as bright as was possible, like a falling star, and Luke was gone.

"Idiot," Asch whispered. "That's something…I already knew."

* * *

"This is as far as my power can take you," Lorelei said.

"How do I finish getting there myself?"

"Just listen. She is calling."

Luke closed his eyes. "I can hear it…"

"Go, Luke."

Luke nodded and headed in the direction of the song.

* * *

Asch watched Luke enter the valley and receive a joyous, and no doubt loud, homecoming from the others there. Asch ignored the exchanges between them all, his gaze focused on a single member of the party. She had changed little, her back just as proud, her presence just as graceful as a little girl in his memories.

"Lorelei." He still couldn't take his eyes off of her as she headed towards the Albiore.

"Yes, my isofon."

"I'm…tired." His body ached from an indiscernible number of physical and mental wounds alike.

"You have done well, Asch. It is time to rest. If you wish for it, your fonons will return to mine."

Asch closed his eyes. An eternity of peace, of watching over everything. It sounded so simple, so easy. A voice, aching from screaming and of asserting his existence, worked its way out of his mouth.

"Yeah."

He turned from the valley, and into the soft light that waited.

* * *

Aneko: I know all the theories about the ending. My least favorite is that the person who comes back is both of them combined. I hate love triangles. Luke for Tear or Asch for Natalia. But not one for both. Drives me up the wall.

My aim was to show Asch being at peace. I don't know how I did.


End file.
